crystalwizard wrote:
I find it interesting that people can accept without thinking about it the medical and scientific fields ascertaion that the human body has an electrical system, uses electricity as part of the function of life and yet have such a hard time with concepts dealing with directing their own energy flow.

The bodys electricity can be detected or measured, but so can your heartbeat. Do you know anyone who can control their heartbeat? I don't mean stay calm- have you ever heard of anybody who can decide "I'll change the speed of my heartbeat" and consciously do it?

Aikido is full of people who line up their body, distrribute their weight, relax, and express a great deal more force than they can account for. Rather than see that they simply didn't realise what the controlled body is really capable of, people attribute ridiculous things to "Ki." Nobody ever opened a door with their "ki," they opened it with the weight of their body.

I believe fully in ki, but I also believe in simple physics, and simply put there's too many people who attribute the workings of the latter to the mystery of the former. You can't consciously direct your energy flow to improve your technique, you can only improve your technique and feel it direct your energy flow. Talk about channelling ki is, for beginners, demonstrating a lack of descriptive ability. Where many should say "I relaxed my shoulders because they were getting tired and just let the blade drop like I was told.." or "I shifted my weight to the _right_ place this time" we might hear "I CHANNELED MY KI AGAIN AND IT WILL MAKE ME INVINCIBLE!! HA HA HA!!"